Cali's Mini Guide Horse's First Day

Cali is settling in well. She's was a little nervous at first and she and my old mare scared each other.

We had a first lesson: Putting on the Dog Harness I got her. I'd opened the large dog harness as large as it would go.
Sigh... our perceptions are so weird. The first thing I had to do was to make it smaller at every angle. She was patient even though the wind was howling.

Next, I let her take me where she wanted to go with a little tug on the harness. She didn't pull hard and stopped a lot to check things out. I clicked when she went forward using the word forward. We walked up to my cart which was in the arena. She stopped. Good girl. Turn to go around and off we went again. The hardest part of this is to trust her. Allow her to see what she sees. As soon as I get a steady forward, we'll go off on walks in town.

She walked happily on the left. She'll learn to wrap around in that direction in time. I didn't worry about that right now.

She's in a bank of two 12 x 12 stalls with a 12 x 24 ft outside yard. She has only gone in the yard area. She also knows about going in the trailer. I put her in tied her and she poo'd right away. She didn't even think about going while we were working. She seems to understand inside and outside and prefers outside or the trailer. I will likely use the trailer to help us put it all on cue.

She going to be a good teacher.